Former NY Gov. Spitzer—“Client 9”—to Hold New York City Fundraiser for Inslee Campaign

Candidate for Washington State governor Congressman Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) will soon be getting a fundraising boost from none other than…

Candidate for Washington State governor Congressman Jay Inslee (D-Wash.) will soon be getting a fundraising boost from none other than disgraced former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D), also known as “Client No. 9” in a federal investigation of a high-class prostitution ring, multiple news sources in New York are reporting Friday.

Spitzer’s uptown Manhattan gathering for Inslee is the first stage of a re-entry into politics. According to The New York Post:

The former governor is hosting the event at his Fifth Avenue home for Washington state gubernatorial hopeful Jay Inslee on March 5.

Inslee, currently a Democrat in the House of Representatives, shares many of Spitzer’s left-leaning political stances.

Insiders believe Spitzer’s soiree shows he’s trying to become a political mover and shaker once again — this time as a national kingmaker.

In the same New York Post article, at least one political insider is quoted as saying Spitzer’s career arc is just a case of doing what comes naturally:

“The second-oldest profession in the world is political fund raising,” a politico sniffed yesterday.

Despite the positive effect a successful cash grab for Inslee could have for Spitzer’s career rehab, one has to wonder how Inslee’s association with an admitted user of prostitutes will play among Washington State women, particularly when juxtaposed against the proactive work his opponent has done to attack the skin trade and sex slavery from a variety of angles.

In his capacity as Attorney General and while the Republican candidate for governor, Rob McKenna has been visible and vocal in efforts to create harsher punishments for human traffickers as well as joining in a national effort to force Village Voice Media to clean up its Backpage.com site, an national online classified ad service that has been cited in dozens of criminal cases as a venue where trafficking or attempted trafficking of minors occurs.

Village Voice Media publishes Seattle Weekly, a publication that also utilizes Backpage.com as a revenue source, and McKenna continues to work with the State Legislature on legislation that would force Seattle Weekly to halt a practice that facilitates child prostitution.

An independent study by Advanced Interactive Media Group estimated that Back-page.com‘s “Adult” section is expected to earn its owner, Village Voice Media, $24.8 million, accounting for more than two-thirds of the $36 million in revenue projected to be earned by all tracked online classified ads facilitating commercial sex. Village Voice Media also owns Seattle Weekly.

Dozens of cases in 15 states involve girls allegedly sold for sex on Backpage.com, according to Shared Hope International, an anti-sex-trafficking group headed by former Republican Congresswoman Linda Smith. Moreover, the Seattle Police Department has linked 22 cases of child prostitution since 2010 to girls advertised as escorts on the website.

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Bryan has been writing about local and national politics since 2008. In addition to writing for The Northwest Daily Marker (nwdailymarker.com) – the digital journal of politics he launched in 2011 – he has been published by American Thinker, Crosscut, Red State and the Everett Herald and explosive stories broken by The Northwest Daily Marker have generated headlines in regional, national and international major media.
Bryan is a lifelong Washingtonian and a proud University of Washington alumnus.

[…] Last month, the Manhattan fundraiser for Inslee hosted by former New York governor Eliot Spitzer (D)—the infamous “Client 9” in the records of a high-class escort service for which Spitzer was a frequent customer—raised eyebrows among Republicans and Democrats alike. […]

Certainly Bryan’s article affords us the opportunity to posit a bevy of brilliant puns and snarky comments; to wit: the first oldest profession and the second, political fundraising, share common attributes. There is a transfer of money and someone gets screwed. But in political fundraising it’s the taxpayers who are on the receiving end and there is damned little pleasure involved.

Humor aside, the political optics of this Spitzer-Inslee fundraiser are glaringly poor. Even in sexually liberated downtown Seattle and Capital Hill there is no support for sexual slavery that results from drugs or economic circumstance (no job, gotta eat) or kidnapping and sale into slavery in a foreign clime.

What’s really bad from the voters perspective is that Inslee using Spritzer indicates either that Jay’s staff is incredibly, incredibly dense (which I doubt, but which would not bode well for an Inslee administration); or, they just don’t give a rip what we think. And that is the result of a party being in power too long with no sense of accountability and no fear of and no respect for those that put them in power.

Perhaps it’s time for a change…a sweeping change for a 10 year period so that we on the other side of the aisle can put the state’s financial house in order and get our folks back to work standing tall not on their backs.